fire and rain
by dress without sleeves
Summary: WillAllan, WillDjaq. Will has to choose.


fire and rain

**Author's Notes: **My first real swing at Will/Allan (with a splice of one-sided Much/Robin, hurrah!). Unbeta'd and not really read through carefully because I'm so nervous and excited to post it.

Sooo many non-canonical happenings I wouldn't know where to start. :)

fire and rain

_For Lewis_

_Without knowing you, I know you are wonderful._

The first time it happens you are fighting, but it's more just out of habit than anything else. He stood by you when Prince John's army bore down on Nottingham and you can't help but think that that has to count for something, even if it's just that he was too proud to run away. But he's kept your secrets—the ones that count—and he's saved your life and you can't help but think that maybe giving up his soul wasn't as much for greed as for security.

But you've been poor too, you've starved and fainted and died too, and the difference is that you dug to find a cause and he dug to find more dirt.

He's looking at you the way he does sometimes, looking at you without that grin, and then suddenly he's kissing you, hard and frustrated and _sad_, pushing you up against the wall and breathing against your mouth as he pins you against stone.

You can't push him away but you're not sure you would, anyway.

"_Listen_," he murmurs, breath coming fast and heavy and unfettered.

And you just look at him, mind full of words that way your tongue down. So you stand, and listen to the sound of your breath mingling. "I'm still mad, Allan," you say, and you mean it.

He smiles, half-heartedly. "I know."

-X-

You don't know when it becomes habit, meeting in darkness in forgotten corners of Sherwood or the castle, but somehow you find yourself slipping with discomforting ease into the routine.

There isn't usually a whole lot of speaking—you aren't women, you don't need that sort of courtship. And part of you wants to believe that it's purely physical, that you enjoy the challenge Allan presents, but a bigger part knows it's not, it has never been, it could never be.

Above all, he is your best friend. Even if whatever _this_ is has to end, that will not.

Tonight he seems particularly aggressive, his tongue battling against yours with a strange but not entirely unwelcome ferocity. You're on the ground before you can think to ask what's the matter, and he is tearing at your clothes like they're a net he's trapped in.

"Allan," you say then, pushing him lightly away. He's breathing hard, staring at you—_all_ of you—taking you in without shame or guilt or decency. "What's the matter?"

He shakes his head. "Not now, Will," he mutters, coming at you again. But you swat him away.

"_Allan._" You're not his love toy. "Talk to me or I'm walking away right now."

Allan hesitates. Then he drops his head into his hands. "I . . . it's just." He swallows, twice, eyes focused hard on the ground. "I don't know how much longer I can stay there. I don't know how Marian does it."

You take his hand, kneeling before him. "By remembering that you're keeping us safe," you say, hoping the words don't sound as hollow as they sound. You pause for a second before adding, "Allan. I . . . you're my best friend."

He looks up at you, and you let him finish what he started.

-X-

It doesn't occur to you to feel guilty, at first. Whatever it is that Djaq and you have going is unspoken and never acted upon; the occasional glance and subtle brushing of skin. But she is fierce and strong and too independent to ever want to be tied down by a relationship and at first that bothered you but now Allan's complicated everything.

And when she finally pulls you aside and says, accent heavier than usual (the way it gets when she is nervous), "Will. I do not know how to say this," you realize that you can't have to separate lives.

You hate yourself for not telling her then, for letting her kiss you, for kissing back. But it just seems so much easier and for the first time you think that maybe you understand what Allan was thinking when he took Gisbourne's first bribe.

-X-

It's Much that finally catches you, lips tangled and arms wrapped so tightly around one another that it's hard to tell what belongs to who. He doesn't say anything at first and you stare heavily both at him and the background behind him, fading in and out of the situation.

But he doesn't react the way you expect him to; he doesn't shout or run back to Robin or accuse. He just . . . looks at you and Allan for a minute and then says quietly, "I thought as much."

Allan raises his eyebrows with a puzzled frown. "I'm not being funny mate, but—how?"

There's a long pause before Much answers. "Because I know what it's like to love someone that, in this world, in this life, you can never have."

You think: Marian as Allan says, "Robin."

Your eyes snap to his and the manservant simply shrugs. "He's too in love with Marian to see. Count yourselves lucky." but then he looks at you, his eyes dark. "You'll have to choose eventually."

He leaves you then, and you can't bring yourself to answer Allan's inquiries. Djaq is not a subject you want to breach. She feels somehow apart, separate but equal to Allan, and how are you supposed to choose between your best friend and the only woman you think you could ever love?

-X-

It is Gisbourne that finally makes the choice for you. Djaq is standing, hooded, neck wrapped in a noose and your hands are shaking as you try to fit your bow.

You think: _no, no, no please God no._

Allan's hand is steadying on your arm but you still cannot shoot and it is Robin who finally cuts her free. She doesn't miss a beat and lashes out with her feet. You scramble away from Allan and untie her hands and before you can think to do anything else you are holding her, kissing her, and what's more she is letting you even though both of you should be warding off the guards that rush from all angles.

You look over her head at Allan, and he is staring at you with wide and startled eyes. Much's hand lands on his shoulder and you can't feel anything but the rip in your heart and the girl in your arms and it doesn't matter in the end what you chose, because either way you would only walk away with half of what you had.

-X-

"I'm sorry," you say.

He says, "Me too."

And then there is nothing but the quiet, and the hug is awkward but welcome. He kisses your cheek before he walks away, clad still in Gisbourne's black, and nothing is really changed except your perception of things.

And you realize that it has always been meant to end this way, with you watching his back as he leaves you, because you are fire and he is rain. One cannot live without the other but they can never be in the same place at the same time.

And as usual, the rain washes the fire away.


End file.
